Yesterday's vote by the House of Commons to legalise gay marriage was a day of shame for our country, and for David Cameron in particular. This was not on the Conservatives' election manifesto, nor was it a priority for most voters. It was also stupid, as it has aleinated many Tory activists and Tory voters and exposed the size of the rift in the Tory party between the "modernisers" and those who hold traditional conservative values. Anthony Scholefield and Gerald Frost published a book called "Too nice to be Tories?" after the 2010 General Election, which argues that Cameron's alienation of "traditional" Conservative voters cost the party an absolute majority in 2010. The Conservative leadership have chosen to plough on regardless, so yesterday's vote has sadly made it more likely that we will see another disastrous socialist government in 2015.
The Coalition for Marriage petition attracted over 600,000 signatures, but this was brushed aside by Cameron and his allies. Many of those who signed were Christians. One may ask why Christians are opposed to gay marriage, and indeed to homosexuality itself? A simple answer is that God has stated His opposition to the practise in no uncertain terms in the Bible - both in the Old and New Testaments.
But this begs the question as to why. God does not hate any practise without a cause. Christians have come up with a number of possible causes - it is unnatural for example; or else that it degrades the dignity of man.
However, one other reason is that it is part of God's providence in the area of government. It may seem odd for a blog entitled "Biblical Liberty" to advocate the denial of liberty to a section of the community (and that was the cry of several gay MPs in the House of Commons yesterday) but the Bible teaches that there have to be boundaries (restraints) in society for our own good. The goal of left-wing anarchists and right-wing secular libertarians alike is a society without government. However, because of original sin, this is unrealistic. Such a society would be the exact opposite of the Utopia they desire. A glance at the final chapters of the Book of Judges proves the point. The book concludes with the statement that "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" after four chapters depicting, among other things, theft, marital infidelity, attempted murder, gang rape and civil war.
Guidelines for the restraints which are the responsibility of the State can be found in the second table of the Ten Commandments. It has hardly ever been questioned that the State should punish theft and murder. However what about sexual immorality, given that adultery is on that list? Christian political thought during the period between 1550 and 1700, when it was at its height, was perfectly comfortable with secular penalties for deviant sexual behaviour. In Calvin's Geneva, people were executed for repeated adultery. Few Christian thinkers today would wish to go that far, but the example of post-1789 France and post-1917 Soviet Union proving what a mess is left behind by regimes that discourage marriage and encourage immorality. From Roy Jenkins onwards, legislation allowing, and indeed in some cases encouraging immoral behaviour is already leaving us with a comparable social disaster in the making. Our politicians started sowing the wind in the 1960s and we are already reaping the whirlwind. Any legislation that encourages any form of sexual behaviour outside the Biblical pattern of monogamous, lifelong heterosexual behaviour is adding to the rot, while also aiding and abetting the Marxist objectives of the Frankfurt School, who set out deliberately to undermine the Christian values which undergirded Western society, and which they saw as an impediment to the spread of Marxism.
By no means everyone who advocates gay marriage would claim to be on the left, but I fear that gay libertarians are inadvertently helping to sow the seeds of tyranny in our society. In their rejection of the Biblical doctrine of original sin and the Biblical need for restraint, they may be scoring an even bigger own goal than David Cameron. Western society neds the undergirding of Christian morality if it is to withstand the forces of totalitarianism. We must pray that God will send us a great awakening and bring many to repentance before it is too late.
The Coalition for Marriage petition attracted over 600,000 signatures, but this was brushed aside by Cameron and his allies. Many of those who signed were Christians. One may ask why Christians are opposed to gay marriage, and indeed to homosexuality itself? A simple answer is that God has stated His opposition to the practise in no uncertain terms in the Bible - both in the Old and New Testaments.
But this begs the question as to why. God does not hate any practise without a cause. Christians have come up with a number of possible causes - it is unnatural for example; or else that it degrades the dignity of man.
However, one other reason is that it is part of God's providence in the area of government. It may seem odd for a blog entitled "Biblical Liberty" to advocate the denial of liberty to a section of the community (and that was the cry of several gay MPs in the House of Commons yesterday) but the Bible teaches that there have to be boundaries (restraints) in society for our own good. The goal of left-wing anarchists and right-wing secular libertarians alike is a society without government. However, because of original sin, this is unrealistic. Such a society would be the exact opposite of the Utopia they desire. A glance at the final chapters of the Book of Judges proves the point. The book concludes with the statement that "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" after four chapters depicting, among other things, theft, marital infidelity, attempted murder, gang rape and civil war.
Guidelines for the restraints which are the responsibility of the State can be found in the second table of the Ten Commandments. It has hardly ever been questioned that the State should punish theft and murder. However what about sexual immorality, given that adultery is on that list? Christian political thought during the period between 1550 and 1700, when it was at its height, was perfectly comfortable with secular penalties for deviant sexual behaviour. In Calvin's Geneva, people were executed for repeated adultery. Few Christian thinkers today would wish to go that far, but the example of post-1789 France and post-1917 Soviet Union proving what a mess is left behind by regimes that discourage marriage and encourage immorality. From Roy Jenkins onwards, legislation allowing, and indeed in some cases encouraging immoral behaviour is already leaving us with a comparable social disaster in the making. Our politicians started sowing the wind in the 1960s and we are already reaping the whirlwind. Any legislation that encourages any form of sexual behaviour outside the Biblical pattern of monogamous, lifelong heterosexual behaviour is adding to the rot, while also aiding and abetting the Marxist objectives of the Frankfurt School, who set out deliberately to undermine the Christian values which undergirded Western society, and which they saw as an impediment to the spread of Marxism.
By no means everyone who advocates gay marriage would claim to be on the left, but I fear that gay libertarians are inadvertently helping to sow the seeds of tyranny in our society. In their rejection of the Biblical doctrine of original sin and the Biblical need for restraint, they may be scoring an even bigger own goal than David Cameron. Western society neds the undergirding of Christian morality if it is to withstand the forces of totalitarianism. We must pray that God will send us a great awakening and bring many to repentance before it is too late.